Britain to impose sugar tax on soft drinks to cut obesity

Britain will impose a tax on excessive sugar levels in soft drinks, starting in two years’ time, to cut down on spiralling childhood obesity levels, finance minister George Osborne said Wednesday.

“I can announce that we will introduce a new sugar levy on the soft drinks industry,” Osborne said, adding that the tax would be on drinks with more than five grammes of sugar per 100 millilitres.

“We all know one of the biggest contributors to childhood obesity is sugary drinks.

“I am not prepared to look back at my time here in this parliament, doing this job and say to my children’s generation, ‘I’m sorry. We knew there was a problem with sugary drinks. We knew it caused disease but we ducked the difficult decisions’.”

Britain has some of the worst obesity rates in Europe.

Official data from last year showed 61.9 percent of British adults and 28 percent of children aged between two and 15 are overweight or obese.

“We did it!” celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who has long campaigned for a sugar tax, said on Instagram.